Bring Russia to the Table and Promote America's Security

The Art of the Deal

Putin's Russia is determined to demilitarize NATO in Eastern Europe, end Western economic sanctions, allow the permanent amputation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity including the Crimea, secure Bashar Assad's rule over all of Syria, and in general establish Moscow in world affairs on a plane of "equal status with Washington".

This last goal is not going to be acceptable to any US president. It would give Russia a veto on U.S. activity abroad and a free hand in its self-proclaimed sphere of influence. Moreover, it would divide NATO, demoralize the EU, and almost certainly encourage further Russian aggression.

Energy policy is the key. A smart, aggressive, and self-interested energy policy makes America stronger and the world safer.

The US and Europe should agree to hold a major NATO summit in advance of a Trump-Putin sit-down. This move would demonstrate renewed NATO strength and resolve.

The proposed American conventional modernization must embrace the entire zone from the Baltic to the Black Sea. It must be coordinated by the U.S. with its allies. It is thus hoped that by doing so, the conventional modernization will help check Russia's nuclear threats.

Realistically, the US-Russia rivalry will remain in place -- but a "strong and nationalist United States," writes Victor Davis Hanson, can be a diplomatic, military and economic "hinge" upon which U.S. efforts to "discourage" Putin from doing things unwise can succeed.

The rivalry between the United States and Russia is entering a new era with the election of Donald Trump. While Trump has made no secret of his desire for better relations between the two nations, he has also called for a more muscular and efficient US military.

The new President seeks to modernize the US nuclear deterrent, expand effective missile defenses, and significantly increase conventional military capability, while reforming and revitalizing NATO.

These plans will no doubt rub up against Mr. Putin's objectives. Putin's Russia is determined to demilitarize NATO in Eastern Europe, end Western economic sanctions, allow the permanent amputation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity including the Crimea, secure Bashar Assad's rule over all of Syria, and in general establish Moscow in world affairs on a plane of "equal status with Washington".

This last goal is not going to be acceptable to any US president. It would give Russia a veto on U.S. activity abroad and a free hand in its self-proclaimed sphere of influence. Moreover, it would divide NATO, demoralize the EU, and almost certainly encourage further Russian aggression.

Nevertheless, since both sides wish to negotiate, the two urgent tasks for the new administration are: 1. formulation of strategic objectives, and 2. adoption of a strategy that gets the United States and its allies where the US would like to go. That means bringing Russia to the table from a position of US strength, rather than the calculated weakness of the last eight years.

For his part, Putin has redoubled his efforts to intimidate the U.S. and its allies. The examples are many and worrying: the destruction and capture of Aleppo, the exclusion of the U.S. from the diplomacy over Syria, the attempted Russian coup in Montenegro, the re-intensification of fighting in Ukraine, the continuing information warfare against the U.S. and its allies in Europe, and of course the public trumpeting of supposed of nuclear and military superiority.

Strategic Choices and Realities

How can a President Trump strategy negate Russian efforts at intimidation?

The two critical strategies lie with US military and economic power. The military side is already well known. President Trump has not only aggressively embraced the nuclear modernization but his defense team has also publicly advocated rebuilding the conventional deterrent and creating a successful cyber-strategy. The modernization of conventional and nuclear capability and its deployment at the earliest possible time to Europe will have two immediate advantages: it will demonstrate the resolve to uphold US commitments to her NATO allies; and it will force Europe into commitment to raise is defense spending in order to field effective and capable military forces in Central and Eastern Europe -- as the new defense secretary highlighted in his Senate testimony.

This enhanced ground, sea, air, cyber, and electronic set of capabilities will reassure Europe and continue to deter Moscow. It will begin to counter balance Putin's continued threats to use nuclear weapons early in any number of regional scenarios as a means of intimidating the US and its allies to "stand down" before a crises has become a conflict.

Meanwhile, Russia's defense budget is under severe pressure as the drop in oil and gas prices in the past few years has dramatically cut into Russian government revenues. Economic sanctions, too, are hurting Russia's overall economy and that as well is curtailing government revenue.

It is true that sanctions alone—which will probably continue to at least July unless rescinded—are not a strategy. But when applied together with a real buildup of NATO forces and U.S. comprehensive defense modernization, they constrain Russia's options as it will have severe difficulty in matching a rebuilt US conventional capability.

In fact, the EU's decision to continue the sanctions actually reflects the success of Trump's pressure on Europe in forcing US allies to assume more responsibility for their own self-defense. And this example suggests how economics and defense policies can work together to create strategic outcomes that add to U.S. and allied leverage.

The proposed American conventional modernization must embrace the entire zone from the Baltic to the Black Sea. It must be coordinated by the U.S. with its allies. It is thus hoped that by doing so, the conventional modernization will help check Russia's nuclear threats.

The US and Europe should agree to hold a major NATO summit in advance of a Trump-Putin sit-down. This move would demonstrate renewed NATO strength and resolve. Simultaneously, a joint U.S. and NATO economic strategy to squeeze Putin's war machine—both through sanctions and through smart, nationalistic economic policy.

Energy Policy is the Key

Here is where history can be a useful guide. A key pillar of then-President Ronald Reagan's successful strategy to end the Soviet empire was to dramatically lower energy prices through the decontrol of domestic oil prices in January 1981. Subsequently in 1985 Reagan successfully got both Great Britain and the Saudi Kingdom to cooperate to dramatically increase OPEC oil production. As a result, the price of crude fell from $30 to $6 a barrel and with it $20 billion in lost oil sales revenue annually flowed out of the Soviet exchequer.

Both 1981 and 1985 Reagan administration efforts had the effect of dramatically curtailing Soviet oil export earnings. This meant a serious loss of revenue to the Soviet government which hindered their ability to invest in the military technology modernization effort needed to meet the challenges of the 1970's revolution in military technology. Soviet industry simply could not meet new defense needs without securing major technology transfers and investments from the West.

Fast forward to 2017. The new President, incoming Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, have long supported increasing US energy production and exports to both Europe and Asia. In a rare moment of energy unity during the previous administration, Congress passed legislation in December 2015 lifting the three-decade old ban on U.S. crude oil exports.

Now we also know Russia is seeking to get OPEC to curtail production to raise oil prices. We also know it is highly unlikely that Russia will actually reduce oil exports given its heavy reliance on oil and gas export earnings to supply the government revenue. Russian energy costs are denominated in rubles, but earnings are in dollars -- so there are compelling motives for selling as much oil (and gas) as possible. Russia's economic capacity to sustain its defense program and its overall state budget rests disproportionately upon its ability to sell oil and gas abroad.

Both sanctions and the low energy prices have affected this capability and preserving them is very much in U.S. interests. Millions of acres of United States government regulated land have just recently been put beyond oil and gas production by executive action by previous administration. This is in addition to the millions of acres owned by the US government already previously put out of bounds for any energy exploration or production.

Increasing US oil and gas production, coupled with Canada and Mexico's potential could easily make North America the energy giant on the globe, break the back of OPEC, and give the United States significant leverage in world fossil fuel policy and prices. The Keystone pipeline, as well as other pipelines, refineries, and terminals can be greenlit to enhance the production, distribution, and export of American oil and gas.

At a Capitol Hill event two years ago, the Ambassadors from the three Baltic nations told us that getting American natural gas to Eastern Europe would be an extraordinary achievement, as it would—in their words—"turn Russia from an energy bully into an energy supplicant".

Gas converted into liquefied natural gas (LNG) can be exported from the United States. Once our prices become truly competitive, the European gas terminals already in Lithuania and Poland that began initial operations recently can receive our exports as well.

Beyond that process the EU is constructing interconnectors across all of Central and Eastern Europe that will gradually unify the continent. Those interconnectors and terminals are already adding to Russian difficulties in selling Europe gas--the resource Moscow most uses for political gain because of its historical monopoly position.

The new administration can also accelerate the process which grants terminal construction licenses, as well as approval for oil and gas exports. Alternatives such as the Southern Gas Corridor from Azerbaijan through Turkey to the Balkans, and the exploitation of recently discovered huge deposits of gas found in the Eastern Mediterranean off Israeli, Egyptian, and Cypriot shores for export to Europe can further bolster US energy policy.

Europe, however, is not the only market for American gas and oil. China currently is heavily dependent on high-sulfur coal for its electrical production. Its old coal power plants do not use environmental safeguards and thus air pollution is leading to a significant rise in the incidence of cancers and other serious health problems among China's population. Combined with India, the two nations have 2.5 billion people while all of Asia taken together now has 4.5 billion people, or nearly 60% of the world's population. The energy demand of such a population can be a major opportunity for the US energy production sector.

US gas resources as well as new technology that allows for the economically viable and useful capture of coal based carbon green-house gases could help spring an energy revolution in the western Pacific, further enhancing US energy policy as a geostrategic tool. There are East Asian firms in South Korea that are already exploring constructing terminals to store US sourced energy.

These initiatives deserve Federal government, support as they advance American and NATO economic and strategic interests vis a vis Russia and China. As President Ronald Reagan demonstrated, military strength alone while critical does not guarantee global peace and security: a smart, aggressive, and self-interested energy policy makes America stronger and the world safer.

The failed 2009 reset with Russia and Putin's belligerence does not mean we are doomed to war. As Victor Davis Hanson observes, given our new-found fossil-fuel wealth and our continued technological superiority, we are in an unusually strong position if we would simply seize "realist avenues" where cooperation can benefit both countries.

Realistically, the US-Russia rivalry will remain in place -- but a "strong and nationalist United States," writes Hanson can be a diplomatic, military and economic "hinge" upon which United States efforts to "discourage" Putin from doing things unwise can succeed. That, however, requires an America willing to, in Hanson's words, "carry huge sticks".

Unfortunately, America has not done so for nearly the past decade. But changing such a strategy now to one of "peace through strength" is exactly the path we encourage the new administration to take. It worked to end the Cold War. And can be the foundation to secure once again a safer America and an allied Europe. That, indeed, would reflect a new "art of the deal".

Stephen Blank is a Senior Fellow at American Foreign Policy Council. Peter Huessy is President of Geostrategic Analysis.

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6 Reader Comments

Dr. Brett A. Harris • Mar 18, 2017 at 09:37

Russian's tend to be sensitive about their security. After WW1, Russia not only lost its political freedom, it also lost its western buffer. This region of Central Europe had given the Russian Empire a sense of security, after the destruction of the Napoleonic War. This freedom gave it the opportunity to expand throughout Central Asia and the Far East, which naturally caused friction with the British Empire, Turkey, and later the US and Japan. While Russia was spared war on its soil, the region was to give rise to the Bolshevik revolution, and the USSR. Subsequently, Nazi Germany demonstrated again that the Russian heartland was vulnerable across the Central European plain. With the fall of Berlin, and 28 million Soviet deaths, the war weary allies could do little but allow Stalin to occupy most of Eastern Europe. With the collapse of communism was celebrated in Eastern Europe AND across the former Soviet States, Russia embraced Western advice and assistance. The result was a massive stripping of assets by various parties, Western and local, which furthered the economic collapse. This combined with the eastern expansion of NATO under Clinton, and the publication of Zbigniew Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard" followed by the 1999 bombing of Serbia, lost most of the goodwill in Russia for its "Western Partners". Nonetheless, after 9/11 Putin was one of the first heads of State to offer all available assistance in the "War on Terror".

This had no effect on the covert, soft power/NGO driven Western project to install friendly governments across all the former Soviet States. These "Color Revolutions" began with Serbia(2000), Georgia(2003), Ukraine(2004), Kyrgyzstan(2005), Belarus(2006,failed), Moldova(2009), Ukraine(2013) and many Russians believe Russia (2012,failed). The instigators of these 'Revolutions' were able to exploit ethnic divisions, many due to WW2, to further their aims. The US sponsored leader of Georgia, and friend of Senator John McCain, Mikheil Saakashvili, trigged the 2008 war with Russia, by shelling civilians and Russian peacekeepers. As reported by "the Guardian" Prime Minister Putin attending the Beijing Olympics, was forced to ask President Bush who was also at the games for an explanation, which he failed to provide. Yet now, the Western media repeats the lie that "Russia invaded Georgia". Similarly while the Crimean Parliament was surrounded by crowds of Crimean civilians holding back an increasing tide of Ukrainian Nationalists pouring in from the 'liberated' mainland, the Parliament voted not to recognise the unconstitutional change of power in Kiev. It then voted to hold a referendum to ask voters on the twin questions of secession from Ukraine and to rejoin Russia. As the new Ukrainian junta had banned the use of the Russian language and there was increasing nationalist violence, the Crimean people requested Russian assistance. The Referendum proceeded as planned and an overwhelming 96% of voters with a turnout of 89% said YES to both questions. Contrary to Western reports, the Russian troops were welcomed in the streets, posing for photographs with a grateful population. Yet Western Media says "Putin invaded Ukraine, Russia annexed Crimea". Similarly when Ukrainian troops attacked protesters in East Ukraine, and shelled civilians, a local militia force using captured equipment, fought back - yet the Western Media says "Russian troops attack Ukraine". The list goes on. Now NATO member Romania has allowed US ABM missiles on its soil, while German troops are in the Baltic States.

Meanwhile Russia's ally Syria is destroyed by Islamists funded and armed directly and indirectly by the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and Russia legally helps Syria defend itself, and is still vilified.

During the Cold War, the political Left in the US was accused of being soft on the Soviet Union. Now that Russia is no longer Communist, is a nationalist, Orthodox Christian country with conservative values, now the Left calls Putin the next "Hitler" and Russia is the greatest enemy of the United States. When unexpectedly the Left's world fell apart, and Donald Trump was elected President, saying that friendly relations with Russia should be pursued, a whole canard of Trump's association with Russia, and unproven allegations of Russian hacking (which they admit didn't effect the election outcome) is invented by the Democrats, thereby making any move by Trump to normalise relations, impossible in the short term.

The Russian Federation was never a threat to the US or Europe. The New Cold War came about because US actors with an historical desire to conquer Russia, aligned with a misguided Left bent on promoting values which are anti-Russian and arguably even anti-Western. Every post-1992 conflict involving the Russian Federation has been in response to US/NATO interference, either inside Russia (Chechnya), the former Soviet Union(Georgia,Ukraine) or a long standing Russia ally(Syria).

Russia has a GDP barely greater than Australia. Less than 1 million people total from the UK and former colonies, US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were killed in WW2. An estimated 28 million Soviet citizens, and approx 14 million Russians from the effects of the war. Russians really do not want war with the West, but the actions of the West look very aggressive to Russians. How America would react if Mexico and Canada had Russian bases, and Russian ships patrolled the Gulf of Mexico?

Russia wants nothing more than to be left alone, to trade like any free nation, and above all for the "West to stop undermining Russia's security". Perhaps that's why Donald Trump was so popular in Russia, and why so many are disappointed with the undignified witch-hunt going on in Washington.

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Axel Westby • Feb 3, 2017 at 16:33

To expand NATO from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea will be a mistake and cause an eventual war of some kind, possibly WWIII eventually. The best way to deal with Russia is to do a "Reagan" on them, but it won't be needed, and the Russians know it. The two big threats are 1) the invasion of refugees including radical Muslim and other terrorists from the Middle East, Asia and Africa. It is expected that at least 200-300 million so called refugees will try to invade and infiltrate Europe between now and 2050, 2) China. OK, folks focus on those two!?

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Derek Hunnikin • Feb 3, 2017 at 10:59

What American army chiefs, notably Lt-Gen Frederick Hodges, Commander U.S. Army Europe, and General Petraeus, together with the UK's General, Sir Richard Shirreff, our former Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, and Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, refuse to recognise is that the Ukrainian civil war was triggered by the territorial ambitions of the European Union!

The reason the Ukrainian civil war erupted was not because of Mr Putin's desire to restore the boundaries of the Soviet Union, but the ludicrously misguided ambition of the West to see Ukraine absorbed into the EU and Nato.

There was never any way that either Mr Putin or all those Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine and Crimea were going to take kindly to seeing the country which was the cradle of Russian identity become part of a Western power bloc. Russia would be even less happy to see the only warm-water ports for its navy taken over by a military alliance that had been set up to counter Russia in the first place.

When 96 per cent of the Crimean people democratically voted to join Russia, this was not, as Western politicians now tell us, because Mr Putin wanted to "annexe" their country. It was because the 82 per cent of them who speak Russian as their main language wanted to re-join a country Crimea had been part of for two centuries. It could be argued that Mr Putin's support for the people of the Crimea is in parallel with Margaret Thatcher's decision to protect the Falklands from Argentina.

At the same time, the democratically elected government of Ukraine was being toppled by mobs of demonstrators in the streets of Kiev, many of whom were being paid from Brussels funds to shout "Europe, Europe" at Baroness Ashton, as she urged them to sign that "association agreement" which was the last step but one to Ukraine becoming a full member state of the EU. (In a referendum the Netherlands voted against the Association Agreement).

That is why the EU, with America's backing, has been led by its own vainglorious delusions into the civil war. The Nato leaders know there is little they can usefully do about it. (Based on a report in The Sunday Telegraph).

In order to get Russian agreement to German re-unification, James Baker, the US Secretary of State, undertook, at a meeting in Moscow at which Jack Matlock the US Ambassador took notes, that Nato would not "leap frog an inch eastward" if Russia would allow the wall to come down. The invitation to Ukraine to join Nato, issued in Bucharest several years ago, broke that undertaking.

On February 2nd 2014, Henry Kissinger said in an interview with CNN, "I don't know of any Russian, whether they are dissidents or pro-government, who does not consider Ukraine at least as an essential part of Russian history. So the Russians cannot be indifferent to the future of Ukraine." Roger Gartland The Suday Telegraph February 2015.

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Ron Thompson • Feb 2, 2017 at 11:37

A great deal may depend on whether President Trump holds a NATO meeting before he meets with Putin. If he doesn't hold such a meeting first, that would send a terrible signal to Europe, Putin, and with regard to his understanding of America's fundamental security interests.
Indeed, I'd like to see him meet with NATO, Israel's leaders, and then Putin.

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David W. Lincoln • Feb 2, 2017 at 11:10

What is preventing the Anglosphere, which includes the US, from working with the 12 countries that are majority Eastern Orthodox Christian, in rallying support for Christians who are being oppressed in the Mid East, and elsewhere?

We can pick up allies, such as Israel, and markedly improve the conditions where Christians don't have to apologize to others for being Christian (which is very similar to an early goal of Zionism).

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Eaglewing • Feb 2, 2017 at 08:19

"peace through strength"...It worked to end the Cold War.Really? So, firstly, it means to knowledge that we're actually in a new Cold War. And we have to do as Reagan in the first one. But we're not in this situation. The real Cold War emerged due to the expansion of the Soviet Union's power in Europe and elsewhere after WW2. NATO was the answer in terms of preventing further expansion, accurately remaining in the old places. "Containment" was said, and it was. Without one single shot, simply incrementing the strength until the collapse not only of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, but also, without the effective Reagan's intention, of the Soviet Union itself.
Now, and this now means since 20 years until now, it is rather the opposite. The USA and NATO were and still are expanding (including troops, tanks, ships, air forces and missiles), until the very Russia's borders. What kind of "containment" is that? "Peace through strength"? No, rather "US", that is "unconditional surrender", as with Germany in WW2. The effective intention is no less than the collapse not only of Putin, but simply of Russia itself as a country, as in the past with Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria and so on. It's in my view a rather reckless and very dangerous way of "peace". And the current POTUS is well aware that the suggestion of this article means exactly: "Do what Hillary would have been doing." That is WW3.